Tag Archives: Brattleboro Police Department

I Don’t Think Vermont Republicans Really Want to Share a Stage with Planet Hank

Warning: This post contains quite a lot of bad, offensive language. It all comes from the subject of the post. I feel that it must be presented in unexpurgated form because it illustrates the mindset of the subject. The worst of the language will be in quote boxes and preceded by trigger warnings.

Hey everybody, get a load of Hank Poitras, d/b/a Planet Hank, video artiste and right-wing provocateur who is scheduled to share a platform on Friday with state Rep. Michael Boutin of Barre and Vermont Republican Party chair Paul Dame.

Poitras is also, apparently, chair of the Brattleboro Republican Committee.

And I’m here to tell you that Vermont Republicans would be well advised to sever all ties with Poitras because he is provably a “misogynistic, narcissistic sociopath,” in the words of New Hampshire progressive videographer “Kyle from the Shire.” That characterization is fully warranted, given the flood of online content produced by Poitras himself. It includes plenty of racist, misogynistic, and hateful material, the kind of stuff that makes disgraced former senator Sam Douglass look like Mr. Rogers by comparison.

Oh, and he also has a criminal record from his time living in New Hampshire.

Best strap yourselves in, folks, because this is going to be a bumpy ride. Complete with trigger warnings.

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Now it’s the Brattleboro PD’s Turn to Screw Up Collossally

Got a little news bomb in my inbox today from the Vermont ACLU. They’re announcing a federal lawsuit that, if true, frankly beggars belief.

The gist: A year and a half ago, the Brattleboro Police Department arrested cited* local resident Isabel Vinson for the “crime” of writing a Facebook post critical of a local business owner. The charge, per Vermont law: “disturbing peace by use of telephone or other electronic communications.”

Wait, what?

*Correction: Cited, not arrested.

Is this the same law that Attorney General TJ Donovan refused to enforce against racist, anti-Semitic goon Max Misch for waging a campaign of social-media hate directed at Kiah Morris? Donovan’s reasoning was that a prosecution would run afoul of the First Amendment.

That happened in January 2019. Vinson was cited in July 2020. I guess somebody didn’t get the memo.

To sum up: You can’t be charged for repeatedly engaging in vile, threatening, racist speech, but you can be for once criticizing a business owner? Huh. I guess justice is blind.

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